The main idea behind Weekly Answer Writing Challenges is to
make your exam preparation more result oriented. For this exam (UPSC Civil
Services), just ‘reading’ is not enough. The most advantageous part of this
writing exercise is to make your answer visible to everyone, someone may correct
you if they find a mistake in your answer plus it must be also supported by our
experts , you may see others answers also. It is free and definitely will
improve your writing ability and marks in your final examination. Here all
topics from syllabus will be covered.

Public Administration- Paper I "Syllabus Topic – Organisations: Headquarters
and Field relationships"

Q1. Discuss the problems in
securing a sound relationship between Head Quarters and Field Organisations.
Illustrate your answer by drawing upon Secretariat- Directorates
relationship in India.

Indian Administration- Paper II "Syllabus Topic – Plans and
Priorities: Process of plan formulation at Union and State levels"

Q2. Discuss the problems in the planning
process at the state and sub-state levels.

Model Answer:

The Planning Process is India, having being highly
centralized in the past as highlighted by Ashok Chanda and K. Santhanam. The ARC
envisioned a decentralized process and hence recommended establishment of
District Planning Boards with the District being the sub-state unit where data
collection takes place and has administrative institutions to facilitate such a
planning process. The decentralized planning machinery was given its
Constitutional status under the 74th CAA, 1992 as Article 243 of the
Constitution.

However, despite the efforts in this direction the devolution has not taken
place in its true spirit.

Some of the evident challenges have been :

Access to data at a State and sub-state level is with
National level institutions and even if access is made available, the
State/District planning committees lack the expertise to analyze this data
to develop spatial and resource integrated plans

Mostly these plans are not aligned to national objectives
and hence are not able to get adequate sanctions of funds

These bodies are unable to network and integrate
resources from different institutions (Central Government, local bodies,
credit institutions and voluntary agencies). Also scientific tools such as
manpower planning are not used to design employment programmes

Current evaluation of programmes has been more
input/money spent based rather than outcome based, therefore they lack the
knowledge on the impact of development programmes.

Even the Bureaucracy and politicians have focused more on
the implementation than the planning leaving poor capacity for such a
function as district and state levels

PRI’s and ULB’s were envisioned as republics of local
self government. However, in reality they become receivers of centrally
sponsored schemes and are often lured due to the subsidies that come along.
Also, the political establishment in these institutions is mostly dominated
by the community elite who wish to exercise their discretionary powers
instead of curbing such powers through a participatory planning process

Also, there is an inherent bias towards a central
planning process thereby limiting a transition to a decentralized planning
process

Therefore, despite the constitutional provision to devolve powers and create
a decentralized planning machinery, there is still much work to be done for to
get participation and its due recognition in the national plans.

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